Extreme Weather and How it Affects Electrical Safety
May 7, 2018Preventing Heat Related Injuries
June 4, 2018Good Morning Team,
Depending on when you are actually reading this, today might be Memorial Day. As you all know, it is the chosen day to honor all our fallen servicemen and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice. While it always feels to me like much less than they deserve, we also need to do our best every day to honor and say thank-you to those individuals of our Armed Forces who have served, or are currently serving their country. We have so many freedoms because of their selfless actions. Let’s remember that a price is always paid for the freedoms we are fortunate to have. I would like to offer a personal and special thank you to those veterans working among us at Weigand-Omega today. I truly appreciate your service.
As our safety manual states; “Our objective is a ZERO energy state prior to engaging in repairs of electrical equipment.” An important tool in making this determination is in our electrical meter or other voltage testing device. You can never rely on a switch, disconnect, breaker, or other means of turning off power to truly know if it is in a ZERO energy state without it. Some equipment may have multiple sources of power going to it. Disconnects and breakers sometimes are not marked, or get marked incorrectly, and don’t always turn off what they are labeled for. I should also mention that there are electrical storage devices, called capacitors, in some equipment that can hold a pretty intense charge of voltage for a short while even after supply power has been shut off to it. You must always test before you touch or you’ll be setting yourself up for a shock, or much worse.
Another important step, when you are de-energizing circuits, is to use a lockout/tagout device to ensure it won’t be re-energized until you are ready for it to be. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that the consequences could be serious, if you happen to be working in a machine that was now suddenly able to run again because someone out of sight flipped a circuit breaker or switch back on. And, as some of you may know, it isn’t always possible to troubleshoot some equipment that is de-energized. You simply cannot take an “amp draw” without the equipment running. There are a number of other scenarios as well where having the equipment electrically isolated will not allow you to troubleshoot the problem. If you are faced with that, then you must fully understand the work you are performing and know the risks associated with it. If you are ever unsure, stop and seek assistance before continuing.
Electrical PPE requirements will often be task specific, but a minimum would almost always be rubber and/or leather gloves, eye protection and rubber soled shoes. You should have electrically insulated tools that are free of any defects in the insulation coverings and as mentioned previously, you will need a good multi-meter for testing. Some folks may rely on a non-contact voltage detector (NCV) and I admit, it can be a useful tool to make a quick check to see if voltage is present. The problem with these devices is they are very limited in what they do and can be fooled in some cases if the voltage happens to be higher or lower than what the NCV is designed for. It can also provide false positives when used near other, still energized, equipment. If you are going to be working on electrical devices, get yourself a true electrical testing meter and understand how to use it, you’ll be glad you did.
The most important safety consideration of all when dealing with electricity is to never do anything you have not been trained for or have no experience doing. You have no doubt turned a light switch on and probably replaced a light bulb, but perhaps you have never replaced a light socket or a ballast? If done incorrectly, not only do you face injury, but property damage such as a fire can occur. You might have reset a breaker in a panel, but if you are not familiar with what is behind the panel the breaker is installed in, then it would be ill advised for you to remove the cover and muck around in there. We all enjoy our centrally heated and cooled work areas, but opening up the electrical compartment of any of these machines to try and see why it might not be working correctly, without training or experience, can lead to injury and property damage as well.
Remember also, that death by electrocution, isn’t the only danger associated with electrical work. There are involuntary muscle movements that can be caused by receiving even a relatively minor shock. This could cause you to jerk the affected body part back strongly enough to cause impact injury with surrounding objects. It could even cause a fall if working at heights. There is also the possibility of an explosion or Arc Flash, that is caused by direct shorts. If any of you have ever seen the spark that occurs when you have a live wire touch the side of a grounded metal box, or had the end of your screwdriver, or other tool damaged by removing a wire from a terminal strip and having the bare metal part of the tool touch the grounded metal compartment walls, then you have witnessed this arc flash on a very low scale. As the voltages and amperages are ratcheted up, these arc flashes can become powerful enough to cause light radiation burns to eyes, 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns to skin, as well as concussive injuries similar to what standing near a bomb at detonation might be like.
I hope that you are never in a situation where you are injured while working around electricity. To remain safe, we must understand and mitigate the risks when we are. It is vitally important that we never “forget to remember” to think about safety.
FYI: The next safety message will be delivered in June. Does anyone happen to know what the month of June is known for in safety circles? That’s right Todd! It’s National Safety Awareness Month!! Let’s all continue doing our part to raise the level of safety awareness we currently have as a company, not only in June, but all through the year. When we all are truly conscious of and committed to safety on a daily basis, we will all benefit.
Have a very safe and productive week.
Sincerely,
Raymond Moore
Dir. of Facilities Services